All Virtual Boy Games #9: V-Tetris

Posted 19 Mar 2025 at 10:39 by Dean Jones
Like other Tetris games published by Bullet-Proof Software (until recent collections), this was a Japanese exclusive Virtual Boy game, although entirely in English. Your first game of Tetris through this will look immensely bland, with pretty much no stereoscopic 3D. There’s not even any difference to any of the blocks, which isn’t a fault of the red/black display. That said, it’s a solid version of Tetris.
The second graphic option for the main mode and the other modes do have backgrounds that make use of layers, yet the game never comes close to looking as nice as Panic Bomber, which shows how lovely flat puzzle games could look using the Virtual Boy’s features. V-Tetris does have one unique mode of Tetris.
In Mode C – also called Loop Tetris, you can use the shoulder buttons to move the plating area around, which loops like a cylinder. It’s similar to the “3D” mode in Pokémon Puzzle League, yet it does a terrible job at visually showing what is happening. The strangest thing is that this is on the Virtual Boy, they didn’t need to use curves to sell the effect – put the middle two colours on the “top” layer and have the blocks to the side further back. This mode essentially gives you areas in the side to dump stuff in (you score lines that are made in the visible area) and is much easier.
Fun
Remake or remaster?
This seems like a good version of Tetris to recreate in Tetris Effect, especially for the Loop Mode.